I’ve always enjoyed creating posters for my screenplays before I start writing them. It helps me think while I’m developing the overall tone of the script.

As my Photoshop skills have increased over the years, the posters have been getting better and for my latest short screenplay, I thought I’d go a little further.

Screenplay Concept Art

Instead of posters, I decided to try my hand at concept art.  Test images I could use to show people the style I’m aiming for in my screenplays.

My latest script is an action story that I’m very excited about.  However, there are some pretty big ideas in it and I wanted to create an image that I could refer to while I wrote the script.

So I searched online and found a picture of a warehouse.

(Photo Courtesy of: www.clairhart.wordpress.com)

The main idea is just to rough out what I’m looking for so the next step was to find pictures of old televisions that I could incorporate into the image.

This would have been impossible a few years ago.  Carefully adding, lighting, positioning and shading each new object took time.  It’s all about trial and error.

I don’t even think I would have thought to add shadows before now.  The resulting image is merely a guide while I finish the script but it’s been a big source of inspiration for me. I keep going back to that mysterious man and where he comes from…

Photoshop Screenplay Blotchy Things

I went even further by creating the image below.

It’s hideous I know but it serves a very important purpose.  The main 3 colors play distinct and unique roles in the story.  I wanted to see how they blended together before I went any further.

It’s pretty much just a blurry mess but you can see by the green hue in the image above that it helps to define the colors scheme of the story.

I feel like I’m in pre-production on a film.  Normally, these types of decisions are left for the Production Designer.

The story is a long way from that stage but using these tools has given my imagination a great head start.

It certainly cuts down on costs if you can do it yourself before you hire someone else. (Who will definitely do it better.)

Pushing Screenplay Concept Art Further

This experiment also gave me a pretty sweet idea to really develop one of my old screenplays using these techniques.

Why not create a series of images and use them as a selling tool?

Who knew Photoshop would be such a huge help!

READ: Photoshop Cures Writer’s Block